


This Lady's Cruelty

by Maidenjedi



Category: AUSTEN Jane - Works, Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick, after Anne breaks his heart, and coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Lady's Cruelty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imera/gifts).



> Title from Sir Philip Sidney poem of same name.

_With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the_  
_skies!_  
_How silently, and with how wan a face!_  
_What! May it be that even in heavenly place_  
_That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?_  
\- "This Lady's Cruelty," Sir Philip Sidney

-

Heartache, Frederick found, smelled strongly of salt, tar, and hewn wood. It tasted of sharp onion, of gruel.

It was an easterly, cursed wind that blew hard and delayed a mission for days on end.

She had taken even the sea from him, it seemed. The freedom, the beauty. He cursed her for it, scrawled angry missives on the scant paper supplied him as an officer in His Majesty's Navy. Each one was thrown to the fish for their morning meal.

-

"I cannot marry you, Frederick."

The words did not register. She had to repeat them, and the tears that slipped down her face made him even more wretched.

"Is it your father? I will speak with him, Anne, I will tell him, I will promise...."

"And say what? You have few prospects. You...."

The reality began to sink in, weighing him down, an anchor on a shore he was increasingly anxious to leave. "I am what, then? Can you not say it? Does it repulse you so?"

"No, you know it does not! It has never mattered!"

"Hasn't it? Or why else allow yourself to be persuaded by their counsel?"

"I...Lady Russell is right. We would be foolish."

He scoffed. "Love is foolish, Anne! It knows little of reason. And all the duty it requires is loyalty."

She bowed her head and stifled a sob. His heart broke and he knelt before her, took her hands in his. "We can leave, now, together. Go to Gretna, and you...you can stay with my mother, she will understand, she will support us...."

Anne took her hands away from his, and cupped his face. It was the most intimate touch they had shared - he closed his eyes, allowed her touch to sear his memory.

"We cannot. I cannot."

And she walked away.

-

Storms at sea were more perilous, more frightening than battle. The young midshipmen quaked, some crying out for their mothers in the rolling, wet dark.

It was easy to forget, how those first storms had been for those who now served as officers, even those in command, until the deepest nights and loudest crashing waves took over. Senses overwhelmed, their forebearance broken, even the eldest and strongest were known to quiver and whimper the names of women, if not God himself.

It was in such a storm that Captain Frederick Wentworth found himself calling for Anne, seeking her embrace, knowing she would hold him up. And realizing, even in his seasick delirium, that she was not there and would never be.

He was surprised, come the calmer morning, with its west wind and bright sky, that he had not been lost at sea.

-

"And you are commander of your own ship, is that right?"

"Not quite, Lady Russell. I have been promised a ship but I do not know yet which vessel I will have the honor of taking to sea."

She nodded, and sipped her tea.

Anne sat beside her, and looked at her face every so often. She scarcely glanced at Frederick, whose palms were damp and whose heart beat irregularly. Anne had made out that Lady Russell was akin to a mother to her, and while Frederick had given up hope of making a favorable impression with Sir Walter, he thought he could make one here.

"Do you have any hope of returning, when you are sent away?"

She was blunt, Lady Russell. Anne looked at her wide-eyed, and paled. It was not a topic they had discussed, she and Frederick, and his heart sank at the very idea of broaching the subject with her.

"I have as much hope as any naval officer, I believe. There are perils at sea and in war, no doubt. But I would make every effort." He looked at Anne, willing her to meet his gaze, and she complied. "I would return, if there were something to return to."

Lady Russell, with a small frown, offered him more tea.

-

He did return, though there was nothing - no one - waiting for him on England's bright shores.

He had written, just once, asking her forgiveness for importuning her, and it was a bitter missive full of all the venom he felt she had gifted him with that last day. He did not know that the letter never reached Anne, that the unreliability of wartime correspondence would eventually prove a blessing.

"I hope, madam, that you will not look for me in lists or on the horizon, for I dare not believe that my name would bring you pleasure, nor my face pleasant memories. Indeed, you are wise, to turn away before you could find me altered beyond endurance. Do not suppose I am angry - only resigned, and bitterly so. Oh, Anne, if only...."

It had gone on to make less sense with every paragraph, and he felt all the injustice of it.

Until, that was, he saw her face, and saw there no regret, only impatience. No unrequited feelings, none of the spark from those heady days so long ago. Just dusty regard, the polite sort expected.

"I thought I heard that you had met the Elliott girls when you were last in Somerset, Captain Wentworth," said Mr. Musgrove over a glass of brandy.

"Only Miss Anne. I did not have the pleasure of your daughter-in-law's acquaintance. I believe she was at school, and Miss Elliott was regretably never able to accept an invitation to tea." He swallowed half his brandy, so much the better to burn the taste of her name from his throat, and stood to pour himself more.

His host hardly noticed. "We almost had an Anne Musgrove on these grounds. She turned Charles away, but we all did think for a time that it would be her who would break from the Elliott pride long enough to see the worth in my son."

Frederick winced. "I see."

"Never has married. We all do wonder, on occasion. Of course, my own girls have more life and vitality at their age, and are more likely to attract...well, there now, I've gone on too long and Mrs. Musgrove would scold me for it. This is none of your concern, and could not hold your interest. So tell me about Cape Horn, then, and your adventures against the French...."

And Frederick spun a tale of the West Indies sure to please even the most anxious papa of unmarried daughters, which distracted Musgrove, if not Frederick himself, from thoughts of Elliotts and their infernal pride.

-

He wanted to want Louisa Musgrove. Or Henrietta. Whichever. He was ready to be loved and celebrated and fawned over by chirping feminine voices.

Until he was. And the calm called him back, brown depths in which he could easily lose himself and find companionship once again.

But no, it was too late.

It was.

-

Love could revive. It could live again.

It may struggle against the brambles of bitter regret, of blame and self-loathing. But when the roots are deep, they may tap unknown resources, and love may flourish in the harshest conditions.

Like hellish hurricanes, and bloody war, and years of separation and disbelief.

 

-

"The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone."

How he longed to believe it!

Her countenance, in which he sought disinterest, was flush with passion. For what she said was clearly something she felt strongly, and her gaze slipped from Benwick's for the briefest moment to meet Frederick's. Modesty, perhaps, overcame her. Or was it simply regret at what she said, in his hearing?

He did not understand her.

Once, in the grove at the curate's cottage, on the paths between it and Kellynch, in stolen hours, amidst promises of fidelity, he thought he had.

At Uppercross, he felt justified in his efforts to forget, to purge her from his heart. At Lyme he was discovering he had failed utterly in his endeavor.

He would tell her. It was not only a woman's heart that loved long. That there was yet hope.

-

End

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [This Lady's Cruelty (the sad steps remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227645) by [NEStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NEStar/pseuds/NEStar)




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